2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly

The Norwegian spiral anomaly of 2009[1] appeared in the night sky over Norway[2] on 9 December 2009. It was visible from, and photographed from, northern Norway and Sweden. The spiral consisted of a blue beam of light with a greyish spiral emanating from one end of it. The light could be seen in all of Trøndelag to the south (the two red counties on the map to the right) and all across the three northern counties which compose Northern Norway,[3] as well as from Northern Sweden[1] and it lasted for 2–3 minutes.[3] According to sources, it looked like a blue light coming from behind a mountain, stopping in mid-air, and starting to spiral outwards.[4][5] A similar, though less spectacular event had also occurred in Norway the month before.[6] Both events had the expected visual features of failed flights of RussianSLBMRSM-56 Bulava missiles,[7][8] and the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged shortly after that such an event had taken place on 9 December.[9]

On 10 December 2009, the Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed that a Bulavamissile test had failed. According to a spokesman, "The missile's first two stages worked as normal, but there was a technical malfunction at the next, third, stage of the trajectory."[9] Russian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer stated to AFP that "such lights and clouds appear from time to time when a missile fails in the upper layers of the atmosphere and have been reported before ... At least this failed test made some nice fireworks for the Norwegians."[12] Prior to the Russian statement, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had already suggested that the unusual light display occurred when the missile's third stagenozzle was damaged, causing the exhaust to come out sideways and sending the missile into a spin.[7]